By Laudia Sawer
Kpone, Oct. 17, GNA-The Sunon Asogli Power (Ghana) Limited has since October 8 shut down its 560 MW (megawatt) power plant at Kpone following the failure of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to honour its overdue payment amounting to US$259 million in net receivable.
Announcing this in a statement signed by Mr Qun Yang, the Chairman of the Company, and made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), “ECG owes Sunon Asogli a net (excluding fuel) receivable amount of $259 million as of the end of September 2024.”
It added that the decision to shut down was necessitated by their inability to fund their operations due to the ECG’s inability to honour its overdue payment obligations and various promises.
“Sunon Asogli Power (Ghana) has over the years been considerate in its dealings with ECG and the government and, unlike other independent power producers, has not even invoiced ECG for accrued idle capacity charges,” it added.
The company noted that the IPP’s debt had grown by 23 per cent on the net balance between January 2024 and September 2024, adding that only 22.6 per cent of the invoices for the period had been paid by ECG from the Cash Waterfall Mechanism.
Sunon Asogli expressed the expectation that the Ministry of Finance would intervene for them to return to operations as soon as possible.
The company in December 2023 suspended a planned indefinite shutdown of its plant after the Ministry of Finance intervened.
GNA